@article{PollatosSchuboeHerbertetal.2008,
  author    = {Pollatos, Olga and Schub{\"o}, Anna and Herbert, Beate M. and Matthias, Ellen and Schandry, Rainer},
  title     = {Deficits in early emotional reactivity in alexithymia},
  issn      = {0048-5772},
  year      = {2008},
  abstract  = {Abstract Alexithymia is characterized by a difficulty in identifying and describing one"s emotions. This study addressed the question of whether alexithymic tendencies are related to limited affective reactivity to briefly presented emotional stimuli. Skin conductance responses were assessed and backward masking was used to minimize elaborated processing of emotional pictures. Results indicated that alexithymic tendencies are associated with smaller electrodermal responses to briefly presented negative pictures. These effects were driven by difficulties in identifying and communicating emotions whereas externally orientated thinking was unrelated to affective reactivity. We conclude that there is an early processing deficit in response to negative stimuli in participants with high scores in alexithymia. Differences in the early emotional reactivity to arousing material could contribute to difficulties in emotional processes related to alexithymia.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{PollatosWernerDuscheketal.2011,
  author    = {Pollatos, Olga and Werner, Natalie S. and Duschek, Stefan and Schandry, Rainer and Matthias, Ellen and Traut-Mattausch, Eva and Herbert, Beate M.},
  title     = {Differential effects of alexithymia subscales on autonomic reactivity and anxiety during social stress},
  series = {Journal of psychosomatic research},
  volume    = {70},
  journal   = {Journal of psychosomatic research},
  number    = {6},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0022-3999},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.jpsychores.2010.12.003},
  pages     = {525 -- 533},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {Objectives: Alexithymia is characterized by a difficulty in identifying and describing one's emotions. Recent research has associated differential effects of the alexithymia facets to hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis markers during stress. This study aimed to analyze how the facets of alexithymia interact with autonomic reactivity as well as self- and observer-rated anxiety during a social stress task. Methods: With the use of a public-speaking paradigm, skin conductance levels (SCLs) and heart rate (HR) during the defined periods of baseline, preparation, stress, and recovery were assessed in 60 volunteers (42 females, mean age 22.8) categorized as having either high (HDA) or low (LDA) degrees of alexithymia. Results: We found smaller SCLs during preparation and speech in the HDA group. Regression analyses indicated that only the alexithymia facet "difficulty in describing feelings" (DDF) was associated with smaller electrodermal responses. In the HDA group, self- and observer-rated anxiety was higher in the HDA than in the LDA group, which was attributable to higher scores in the subscales "difficulty in identifying feelings" (DIF) and "externally oriented thinking" (EOT). Conclusions: Our data support and specify the decoupling hypothesis of alexithymia by showing that the facets of alexithymia are differentially related to autonomic reactivity as well as self- and observer-rated anxiety during social stress.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{KochMatthiasPollatos,
  author    = {Koch, Anne and Matthias, Ellen and Pollatos, Olga},
  title     = {Increased Attentional Bias towards Food Pictures in Overweight and Obese Children},
  series = {Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior},
  volume    = {2},
  journal   = {Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior},
  number    = {2},
  issn      = {2375-4494},
  doi       = {10.4172/2375-4494.1000130},
  pages     = {7},
  abstract  = {Objective: Childhood overweight is related to higher sensitivity for external food cues and less responsiveness towards internal satiety signals. Thus, cognitive psychological models assume an enhanced food attention bias underlying overeating behavior. Nevertheless, this question has only been sparsely investigated so far in younger children and it remains open whether restrained eating behavior plays a correlative role. Methods: The present study investigated this specific information processing bias for food relevant stimuli in 34 overweight children between 6 and 10 years and 34 normal weight children matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status. Children completed a computerized Food Picture Interference task that assessed reaction time interference effects towards high and low calorie food pictures. Level of hunger and restrained eating were assessed via self-report. Results: Results indicated that while finding no group difference in general processing speed or hunger level before the task, overweight children showed a higher attentional bias to food pictures than normal weight children. No effect of caloric density was found. However, surprisingly, the interference effect was negatively related to restrained eating in the overweight group only. Conclusion: The found hypersensitivity for food cues independent of calorie content in overweight children appears to be related to dysfunctional eating, so that future research should consider strategies for attentional retraining.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{MatthiasSchandryDuscheketal.2009,
  author    = {Matthias, Ellen and Schandry, R. and Duschek, S. and Pollatos, Olga},
  title     = {On the relationship between interoceptive awareness and the attentional processing of visual stimuli},
  issn      = {0167-8760},
  year      = {2009},
  abstract  = {Mental processes related to visceral activity have gained growing interest during the last few years. The following study is the first to investigate possible interactions between interoceptive awareness and measures of attentional performance. We tested the hypothesis whether interoceptive awareness is positively related to indices of selective and divided attentional performances. Using a heartbeat perception task, 29 healthy female participants were separated into two groups scoring either high or low in an interoceptive awareness task. Attentional performance was assessed by several tests including the 'd2 test of attention' and subtests from the 'TAP: Test Battery for Attentional Performance'. We observed a significantly better performance in selective and divided attention for participants with high interoceptive awareness. Our data suggests that interoceptive awareness is related to a better performance especially in tasks assessing selective and divided attention. We conclude 1) that perception of bodily states might be a crucial determinant for the processing of external, visual stimuli, 2) that the ability to perceive internal signals might be an indicator of self-focused attention, and 3) that bodily signals may use, at least in part, similar processing resources as signals from the attention system.},
  language  = {en}
}